It turns strangely quiet as the driver pulls the truck over onto the shoulder of the highway and turns off the engine. There’s just drumming of the rain on the roof, and the traffic swishing by.
It gets louder when the driver opens the door and hops out to meet the police.
‘We’re so fucked,’ George whispers.
Klara doesn’t answer him. She’s trying to listen, but all she can hear is the rain and the road.
‘But they don’t have anything on us,’ George continues.
‘Just the shooting at the Palais de Justice,’ Klara mutters.
A few minutes go by before they hear the door of the cabin open again. All three of them hold their breath. Klara’s hands are so sweaty she almost loses her grip on the gun. What is she planning to do with it anyway? Threaten the police? Shoot them? That would be insane, and not helpful at all.
She carefully raises the mattress and puts the gun beneath it. Better not to have it on her when the policemen arrest them. She should tell Jacob to hide the memory card as well.
Then she hears someone climbing the steps to the cabin. The door slams, the engine starts. The truck slowly starts rolling forward, then accelerating, and eventually joining the traffic on the highway.
Klara looks at George and raises her eyebrows.
He shrugs slightly, as if he can’t believe it’s true. They wait a couple of moments, as if to make sure.
Klara bends forward and looks through the gap in the drapes. The driver turns around and smiles at her. ‘Coast is clear,’ he says. ‘Is that how you say?’
Klara furrows her brow and climbs up to the passenger seat. She turns to him. ‘Why did you protect us?’ she says softly. ‘You really don’t know anything about me or the boys back there.’
He adjusts in his seat and puts his hand lower on the wheel. Klara can see tattoos peeking out from under his sleeve and on the back of his hand. Letters and symbols on his fingers and knuckles. He turns and smiles at her. ‘You remind me of my daughter,’ he says, pointing to her. ‘Tough.’
Klara smiles back carefully. ‘How old is she?’ she asks.
Without answering, he lets go of the wheel with one hand and removes a wallet from his trouser pocket. He fishes out a faded picture of a woman in her twenties.
‘Old picture,’ he says. ‘I haven’t seen her in ten years.’
‘Ten years? Why so long?’
He puts the picture on the seat and knocks on his own head. ‘I’m stupid,’ he says. ‘Prison. No good for her.’
He looks sad, then he turns and smiles at her again. ‘But I hate the police. So, good for you. I said you talked to me. But you wanted to go to Berlin.’
‘Not so stupid, I’d say,’ Klara says and leans back in the chair. ‘Pretty smart, in fact. You surely bought us some time.’
*
Klara’s been sitting with the burner phone since they left the police, trying to gather her strength. Now she finally turns it on and it blinks to life. Takes a deep breath, opens the browser, and goes into her secret email account.
There’s only one new message, sent yesterday, and from a Hotmail address that consists only of numbers. Yesterday? Did they release her yesterday?
Klara clicks on the message. Three sentences. ‘We have to meet as soon as you come back from Brussels. Email me here to tell me you’re okay, nowhere else. Don’t contact the police before we meet.’
The last sentence has been bolded. Klara looks up from the phone and stares into the darkness and the gushing rain. ‘What is this, Gabi?’ she whispers. ‘What the hell is this?’
Then she turns to the truck driver. ‘Where in Sweden are you headed?’ she asks.
‘Gävle,’ he says, without looking away from the road.
‘Can we go with you to Stockholm?’ He turns and looks at her with an amused expression.
‘You think I throw you out now? After I lied to the police for you?’
Klara smiles and shakes her head. ‘No,’ she says. ‘No, I don’t.’